Slideshare uses cookies to improve functionality and performance, and to provide you with relevant advertising. If you continue browsing the site, you agree to the use of cookies on this website. See our User Agreement and Privacy Policy.

Slideshare uses cookies to improve functionality and performance, and to provide you with relevant advertising. If you continue browsing the site, you agree to the use of cookies on this website. See our Privacy Policy and User Agreement for details.

This research was carried out in a previous role at Edge Hill University. Given the audience at ALT-C, I am presuming you are familiar with the basic concepts of Open Education. That is, openness encompasses licensing, access, format and software.

Respondents were asked to select one option in response to the question, ‘to what degree would you be willing to share your content?’ 100% of respondents said they would be willing to share their own content at some level, with 57% (n=34) happy to share more openly beyond the University. This can be broken down into two categories; use for any not-for-profit users (n=25, 42%) or open for anybody to reuse (n=9, 15%). Interestingly, in considering the reuse of their own materials, one free text response in this study said, “It is very difficult to stop people using our material”. Another replied, “It’s being attributed correctly that is important. I have previous experience of whole groups of people using my materials etc and taking my name off and adding theirs. Which was annoying”.

The questionnaire identified confusion amongst academic staff regarding ownership and the work they create. Shared ownership between the creator and the Institution was the most common response (n=25, 42%), followed by the Institution (n=17, 29%). Free text comments suggested a further lack of clarity in this area. This confusion aligns with Rolfe’s (2012) research, which suggested roughly half of respondents thought copyright resided with the University, 24% were unclear, and 16% believing it resided with the individual.

The data suggests that teaching staff are already reusing existing content, and willing to share content in the future, despite the lack of any formal policies to encourage this practice. This could support Hylen’s viewpoint that ‘OER is still mostly a bottom-up phenomenon, where the managerial level of the institutions are not involved and not aware of the activities going on’ (Hylén, 2006).

Schaffert &amp; Geser (2008) suggest if something is to be open, it must subscribe to 4 elements: Open Licensing, Openly Access, Open Software and Open Format. This is quite a strict viewpoint, whereas Hilton et. al. (2010) suggest;&quot;Openness is not like a light switch that is either ‘on’ or ‘off’. Rather, it is like a dimmer switch, with varying degrees of openness” (Hilton et. al, 2010)Either way, both Viv&apos;s and my own research highlights that the current informal sharing isn&apos;t really &apos;open&apos; (in the strict sense of the word), or even if we consider varying degrees of openness, it demonstrates such a dim view the light switch may as well be off.So from my viewpoint, much of the sharing taking place isn’t really open at all.

Awareness, Attitudes and Participation with the Open Content Movement

2.
What is OER… “Digitised materials offered freely and openly … to use and re-use” (Hylén, 2006) Open Licensing | Open Access | Open Format | Open Software (Schaffert & Geser, 2008) “Openness is not like a light switch that is either „on‟ or „off‟. Rather, it is like a dimmer switch, with varying degrees of openness” (Hilton III, Wiley, Stein, & Johnson, 2010). @Reedyreedles